Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
--H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Now THAT column was retarded.

Wow. Some people are just willfully blind. Mr. Danny Schechter of the liberal MediaChannel.org published a column today accusing the blogosphere of trying to shift the MSM's focus from Bush's Texas Air National Guard service record to Dan Rather's forgery scandal.

Among the highlights:

A news outlet once headed by "the most trusted man in America" is accused of being the least trustworthy. With Rather apologizing for airing a story based in part on memos that CBS cannot verify, it looks bad for network news in general and critics of President George W. Bush in particular. And that fits the M.O. of the people behind the hit.Proving the truth beyond reasonable dispute is a decent blogger's "M.O." Judging by the whining, it certainly isn't yours, pal. I may not be successful every time, but at least I try.
Fox News branded this dust-up a scandal, a "Rathergate," using a familiar "change-the-subject" tactic to deflect attention away from persuasive charges that President Bush has not told the truth about his military "service." Allegations about a media misdemeanor were quickly blown up into a felony demanding Rather's career termination with prejudice.Hmmm... Fox calls it a scandal. What, if not a scandal, do you call it when CBS airs a report based on blatant forgeries, takes days to admit that the documents are "questionable" (but not forgeries), and has not even suspended those responsible? By the way, speeding is a misdemeanor. I'd certainly like to think that the MSM doesn't use blatantly false information to confirm stories quite as often as my buddies exceed the speed limit.

[The Rathergate scandal is] a textbook example of how attacks against journalists are used to denigrate news not to the right wing's liking by planting items in the media food chain and cranking up an echo chamber of feigned indignation.Allow me to get this straight. We have Burkett (document source), Mapes (CBS producer), and Lockhart (Kerry aide) in contact with each other, but that's not enough to link the Democratic Party to the forgeries. In the meantime, he's speculating that this is due to some right-wing "planting," with zero evidence to back him up? H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y. Oh, and "feigned indignation?" There is definitely nothing feigned about us being indignant. Allow me to repeat myself: we were misled by a major news network, then lied to that the documents were from an "unimpeachable source," and there has not even been a retraction. Of course people are indignant!

It's possible that CBS was flim-flammed...Yeah. Just maybe. Understatement of the century, right there folks. The biggest problem with his whole column is that he forgets that when you get to the bottom of it, this whole scandal is about the American public being deceived by poorly forged memos. Even if the substance of the "fake but accurate" CBS story is correct, that in no way relieves CBS of its duty to thoroughly research and authenticate its evidence before airing it. In a best case scenario, the whole thing was due simply to inexcusably shoddy research. In a worst case scenario, due to the liberal media trying to damage the opposing candidate's reputation. Either way, CBS loses. Sorry Danny, but there's no way around that one.